Book Reviews

"The land of enlightenment is not north or south but within us all the while. Such is the paradox of travel. Knowing from the outset what the great mystics and poets have all told us, that tending our own garden brings ultimate happiness and that suffering a lifetime of worldly questioning is entirely unnecessary, we still set out to do just that. The Road Within: True Stories of Transformation helps us understand why. It is not logical. It is pathological. This book brings us the ecstasy of smells and tastes, the primordial rhythms and lightning flashes of satori that make it so. Travel is a siren song we are helpless to resist. Heedless of outcomes, we are hooked on the glories of movement, passion and inner growth, souvenirs in abundant supply in The Road Within."
Escape magazine -- The Global Guide for the

"In this latest volume of Travelers' Tales, a new twist takes the reader through life-changing adventures that map the ecology and topography of an atlas of inner journeying. Remarkable writers chronicle remarkable inner experiences from every corner of the world -- Katie Hickman confronts the demon army of the Mexican Cora Indians taking over the village of Jesus-Maria during Holy Week; Annie Dillard in Beijing portrays an elderly writer who has survived all the twists and turns of a liberated China; James Hall gets ill in Swaziland while training to be a sangoma or traditional healer; Janine Barone helps raise the castle at St. Victor la Coste in France stone by stone; Huston Smith experiences the identity of opposites in Zen training in Japan. The tales are often entrancing, filled with wonder and radiant expansions of what it is to be human."
NAPRA ReView 1997

"Like gourmet chefs sampling the produce in an overstocked French market, the editors of Travelers' Tales pick, sift, and prod their way through the weighty shelves of contemporary travel writing, rejecting the second rate and creaming off the very best. They have impeccable taste -- a very welcome addition to the genre."
William Dalrymple, Author of City of Djinns

"The Travelers' Tales series aims to convey the excitement of voyaging through exotic territory with a vivacity that guidebooks can only hint at."
Millennium Whole Earth Catalog

"The Travelers' Tales series should become required reading for anyone visiting a foreign country who wants to truly step off the tourist track and experience another culture, another place, first-hand."
Nancy Paradis, St. Petersburg Times

"For travelers who want a wider introduction to a country and its culture, Travelers' Tales is a valuable addition to any pre-departure reading list."
Tony Wheeler, Publisher, Lonely Planet Publicat

"...These anthologies seem destined to be a success... Travelers' Tales promises to be a useful and enlightening addition to the travel bookshelves. By collecting and organizing such a wide range of literature, O'Reilly and Habegger are providing a real service for those who enjoy reading first-person accounts of a destination before seeing it for themselves."
Bill Newlin, Publisher, Moon Publications

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